Hermeneutical Injustice

Hermeneutical injustice, a concept developed by philosopher Miranda Fricker, is a form of epistemic injustice in which a person's experience is unintelligible to themselves or others because the collective interpretive resources of their community lack the concepts, vocabulary or frameworks needed to make sense of it. Marginalised groups - including disabled and neurodivergent people - are disproportionately affected, because dominant knowledge systems reflect the perspectives of those in power. In accessibility and HCI contexts, hermeneutical injustice is used to explain why certain experiences (autistic loneliness, AI companion grief, sensory pain) remain culturally illegible and why naming them through research and community work is itself a justice intervention.